A long, long time ago I posted a story about the woman and the stone soup. Well, today on our block in the city we made it real, not because of a famine, but for fun and unity. The young people planned a brunch for this morning and blocked off the street. They weren’t sure where everything would come from but printed out a menu. Sure enough, before noon we had a table full of trays of bacon, grits, eggs, etc. to feed a crowd with a little left over. I said, to myself, this is good practice for hard times. I refrained from singing my pandemic song “Get ready, stay ready, hard times may be coming…” If we put together what we all have, it looks a lot better than looking at just a box of grits for your daily food. I guess this is more of a comment than an opening for discussion, but I hope someone has a story to share too.
The story is here.
Make sure you heat any food gathered from a BF region to 165F or higher.
The church here has pot lunch every Sunday. We serve anyone and ask no questions. The problem, of course, is that with BF you don’t want gatherings of people. However, calling a neighbor first and taking something like soup that they can boil might be a good approach. I can envision “front porch trading” where one person leaves a can of pea, etc and other gather it and return soup or stew. —All transactions done by calls and leaving things on the porch so there is no “social contact”.
I have something similar in mind for water here. I have plenty of water but many around here do not. (this is NM) So I expect to give, exchange or trade if anyone needs water around here.
DennisC: That’s good advice. If flu comes around we increase the physical distance between neighbors without losing the connection. Let’s strengthen the resilience of those connections now so they can survive the stretch.
When I was growing up in Alaska our church called it “pot-luck”, and the natives there had something called “potlatch”. It’s such a good way to form community and I think it’s missing in so many lives these days. A lot of problems might be solved by a weekly shared meal.
Melanie, you are really on the ball as always! My memory changed the story around a little, but same message.
A church I pass on my way to the YMCA pool has a sign up. Free dinner on Friday nites. I’ve never stopped by, but I am curious about it. They seem to have been doing it for at least 3 years, so people must go.
Lily – at 14:47
Trying not to get into religion…. Our church has the “potluck” lunch each Sunday. We get quite a few people from other “churches” as well that show up and many bring a “dish” with them. It is a small town and works quite well. We also have snacks and home made icecream for teens after school on Wed.
But again, with BF the name of the game is to keep social distances. I would think that soup or stew would be ideal. The idea is to have things you can boil.
The church here now has title to an older church building that we hope to set up for emergency evacuations. (fires, floods,..) But I don’t think it would work for BF. We hope to have some “snow fun day” events (tubbing, ice sculps, snowman contests ….) and have “prep” type items as entry “donations”. The idea is to develop some emergency supplies.
Funny thing about that Stone Soup story — the version I recall has the townspeople hiding their rations from the soldiers, not because of a famine, but because the soldiers had been riding towns “requisitioning” their food!
Old Tyme stories have new meaning to me these days, for some reason.
If while I’m on my frugality binge I decide to go to the church I pass for a Fri. dinner, I’ll take Dennis C. suggestion and bring a few cans of something for their pantry offerings. Everyplace around here has a donation bin for the pantry for people who are down on their luck. I usually chuck in a few things every other week or so.
Besides food, other things can be started up from scratch. A young mom on our block started a day camp with no funds but what was donated, and fed the kids lunch every day donated by other mothers. Camp was free for the kids. No overhead costs. They blocked off a short street and set up chairs and umbrella/tables for their activities. We (neighbors) were glad to see them doing something besides jumping on cars and creating a nuisance, so when asked for food donations, we were glad to help.
Years ago, when I attended church at the Student Center at our college, my husband and I would go to Tuesday services at the Episcopal Student Center and have free Soup Supper afterward. While in that soup line one night, I found out that my first husband was having an affair!
The girl in front of me turned around and said that she had not realized that we lived in her building but she’d been seeing my husband leaving her building several times since she’d started getting up earlier to run since it had cooled off some.
Free meals can be soooooo entertaining.
PS we lived in a student trailer park across town & I thought he was getting up early because of a promotion at the restaurant where he worked…..I used to be so dumb.
Our family (the kids and us) sometimes pick stone soup supper. Its kind of fun. Everyone gets to pick their own veggie or meat to add to the pot … we have a huge stock pot that I use for this. The trick is that that have to prep whatever veggie/meat they chose.
Even the 2 year old got to add something to the pot last time we did this.
I use a base of V8 or veggie cocktail juice for this. Leftovers are also used as is rice and pasta.
Sometimes stone soup is definitely a “soup” and sometimes it is closer to a stew or casserole. <grin> But it is usually quite delicious.
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